My employer provides phones to employees and they are quietly encouraging everyone to dump Blackberry, although not quite going to the same level as Yahoo paying everyone to switch. They may get some short term optimism, but the long term is that RIM is headed for the grave - at least on the corporate side.

Which is pretty much the only side they have left. A couple years ago, I saw people(mostly younger women) with Blackberry Curves, but now I never see those anymore, just the occasional business guy with his BB Bold. And usually those people have two phones, the business BB and a personal Android or iPhone. RIM better do something pretty special next year to avoid the graveyard, but I'm not seeing anything that can save them yet.

bsharitt:Macular Degenerate: RIM is headed for the grave - at least on the corporate side.

Which is pretty much the only side they have left. A couple years ago, I saw people(mostly younger women) with Blackberry Curves, but now I never see those anymore, just the occasional business guy with his BB Bold. And usually those people have two phones, the business BB and a personal Android or iPhone. RIM better do something pretty special next year to avoid the graveyard, but I'm not seeing anything that can save them yet.

This. Business travel used to be Blackberries all up and down the plane or in the lounges. Now its a mix of Samsung and other high end Androids, with Apple hanging on, and Blackberry about nowhere.

I have a Curve as a hand-me-down from somebody who upgraded to an iPhone 4S.

Most analysts had expected RIM, for the first time in its history, to begin losing subscribers in the recently completed quarter as it has rapidly lost market share in North America to Apple's snazzier iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy devices.

There is huge pressure on company executives to create subscribers to keep the company looking viable. I wonder if the added 2 million are real.

ZAZ:I have a Curve as a hand-me-down from somebody who upgraded to an iPhone 4S.

Most analysts had expected RIM, for the first time in its history, to begin losing subscribers in the recently completed quarter as it has rapidly lost market share in North America to Apple's snazzier iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy devices.

There is huge pressure on company executives to create subscribers to keep the company looking viable. I wonder if the added 2 million are real.

I highly highly doubt it. That was my first thought: 'uh huh, sure'

The videos of BB10 don't look impressive at all. Some sort of Windows Phone/meego clone. I don't see anything that would convince me to go with it and not Android. It doesn't even have a home screen ffs. Just a bunch of tiles of running apps. Not tombstoned, actual running apps. So I'd be turning that off in a hurry all the time to save battery. Then way, it's a blank screen unless you swipe left for the apps list? Guh, no thanks.

I prefer the hardware design of my Blackberry 9850 Torch over than of my Samsung Galaxy S, save for the smaller screen size. The battery and memory card in the BB are easier to get to and the BB case hides scratches better. The BB case is also curved better to fit in your hand. I also like the dedicated notification light and slightly raised buttons. If you tap the BB screen hard, it makes a nice solid thunk noise. Do the same with the Galaxy S and you can hear stuff vibrating around with the case. Even the microUSB plug is easier to insert into the BB versus the S.

On the software side, everything is reversed as the BlackBerry falls flat. I find the system configuration menus and many bundled apps to be clunky to navigate. I seem to always be fighting with the phone to do something. I'm constantly misdialing people with my BB. And there is a hefty monthly fee to use the map navigation app. Even on the third party side, apps in their app store tend to suck versus those on Android or iOS. Not as many, seem to be a generation or two behind in features, etc...

If RIM were to make an Android phone with the same build quality as my Torch, but with a full-size slide-down qwerty keyboard like the Moto Droid (and not their weird mini BB keyboard), I'd be in heaven.

tomcatadam:They considered it, but then rejected the idea under the basis that Android has never been as good as any iteration of the BB OSes regardless of developer support and consumer demand.

Says the company who switched from their home-grown kernel to QNX.

Imagine if RIM had integrated Android with BlackBerry Enterprise Server client policies when Eclair was released. I doubt that 3LM (now owned by Motorola) would have ever gotten off of the ground. With Google filling the gaps on one end and Motorola on the other, any chance for RIM to have dominated that market segment is pretty much gone.

Macular Degenerate:My employer provides phones to employees and they are quietly encouraging everyone to dump Blackberry, although not quite going to the same level as Yahoo paying everyone to switch. They may get some short term optimism, but the long term is that RIM is headed for the grave - at least on the corporate side.

I wish. I only have BB curve and hate it. But it's still a better option than paying for phone service myself. My company is preparing for RIM to die, but for the time being, only sales people are getting iphones while they're stuck buying me a blackberry they're going to need to replace probably within a year or so.

For years it was Blackberry, then iPhone, now Android. And these fans swear up and down by their new product, just like they did the last one a few years ago. Even though they have to make up poor reasons for why they hated the one before. The only valid complaint is cost wise for companies unwilling to pay for BES

For years it was Blackberry, then iPhone, now Android. And these fans swear up and down by their new product, just like they did the last one a few years ago. Even though they have to make up poor reasons for why they hated the one before. The only valid complaint is cost wise for companies unwilling to pay for BES

I wouldn't buy a smartphone until it could rival a PC in flexibility and utility. The iPhone was too locked-down, the Blackberry was too FARKING slow and Windows Mobile had more bugs than Starship Troopers.

I even waited until the Droid2 came out, since I knew the first one was going to have more 'I SWEAR TO GOD, WE'LL FIX IT!' problems than Windows 95.

When I had a friend show me the system it ran on, I knew I was going to get one. When he showed me that it came with a full-blown SDK I had one within a month.